Hope

I recently attended a scientific meeting with which I’ve had an uncomfortable relationship for years. When I first heard about the topic domain and focus of this meeting as a trainee I was amazed. “This is just the right home for me and my interests in science”, I thought. And, scientifically this was, and still is, the case.

I should love this meeting and this academic society.

This has not been the case, very likely because of the demographics of the society (guess) in addition to a few other….lets call them unusual academic society tics.

This year was a distinct improvement. It isn’t here yet but I can see a youth wave about to crash into the shore. This swell of younger scientists (stretching from postdoc to nearly-tenured) looks more like modern science to me. Demographically, and on many dimensions.

This gives me hope for the future of this academic meeting.